Chapter X: Part 10

Even in the greatest errors of their philosophy, a certain religious bearing and tendency can easily be pointed out. However in a country like Germany, where religious opinions and interests are so various and so intermixed, a long time must elapse before a profound philosophy, which would satisfy these yearnings of religious desire, can attain its full moral developement, or assume a clear outward tangible form. If I before said of the English, in reference to the struggle going on between the conflicting elements of their government--a struggle which in one form or other every great European nation has to settle in its own interior, and to bring to a successful issue--that it would appear by many expressions in their parliamentary proceedings, from those in particular at the head of affairs, and who are best acquainted with them, that a secret self-apprehension besets the minds of English politicians;--so I may now say of our German nation, among whom the conflict lies principally, or more immediately in the sphere of religion and philosophy; that more than all other nations the Germans are destitute of self-knowledge and of mutual concord; and the cause of this must be sought for in the unfulfilment of their religious and philosophical destiny, and in the yet unallayed discord between opposite elements of faith and various systems of science.

In the first period of German literature, the Protestants had quite the preponderance; but since then, the balance, at least in science, has been completely restored. I speak here of internal religious principles, and not of outward confessions of faith, which cannot be made the criterion for a philosophic classification. For otherwise by descending into details, I might cite, among the few quite irreligious organs of German philosophy, some writers (happily rare exceptions) who belonged to Catholic Germany; and on the other hand, among those foremost and most distinguished in reviving the pure Platonic philosophy, and whose profound religious conceptions have given quite a Christian form to natural philosophy itself, I might adduce the names of men who were members of the Protestant church. Philosophy itself has not to determine, nor to illustrate religious dogmas, nor does it stand in immediate connection with them. The main point to which I wish to direct attention, and which is necessary to render philosophy Christian; is that an internal harmony or unison should be preserved between faith and science; next that the principle of divine revelation should be regarded as the basis, not only of theology but of every other science; and lastly, that even nature herself should be studied and investigated by this high religious light, and thus made to receive from science a new and transparent lustre. The modern German philosophy even in its infancy, when it was yet pretty closely allied to the English school, and mostly started with the same problems (though it gave to these a deeper and a wider solution), aimed at this harmony between faith and science. It understood both indeed in the very limited sense of a mere faith of reason and science of reason, influenced as it was by the Rationalism then so generally diffused, not only in Protestant but even in Catholic countries, and notably in Catholic Germany. But at the same time other profound thinkers sought another and higher foundation for philosophy in the idea of revelation; a revelation which some understood in a mere general and speculative, though not irreligious, sense--and others in the Christian sense of positive faith and pious feeling. The capital vice of German philosophy is the absolute--the philosophic reflection of the general vice of the spirit of the age, which exerts an absolute influence on life itself--whether this vice of German philosophy assume the form of the absolute ego,[27] or that of the Pantheistic naturalism,[28] or that of absolute reason.[29] It is this which originally gave to the natural philosophy of the Germans a false Pantheistic direction, for the real materialism which has found so many advocates among the French Naturalists, has from the very ideal tendency of the German mind, experienced little favour in Germany. Yet this foreign influence was not of long continuance--German physics became deeply imbued with a religious spirit, and the German natural philosophy is now in the hands of its first representatives decidedly Christian. And this progress in the great work of the religious regeneration of science, I must consider as the noblest triumph of genius, for it is precisely in the department of physics the problem was the most difficult; and all that rich and boundless treasure of new discoveries in nature, which are ever better understood when viewed in connection with the high truths of religion, must be looked upon as the property of Christian science. The various systems of philosophic Rationalism, mutually subversive, as they are, of each other, will fall to the ground, and the vulgar Rationalism which is but an emanation of the higher, and which still prevails in some particular schools, and in many of the lower walks of German literature, will finally disappear; in proportion as German philosophy becomes imbued with the spirit of religion, and German science becomes thoroughly Christian, or Catholic. In the firm hope that this will certainly happen, I have given publicity to these first essays of a philosophy I had long in secret prepared; and of which the first part, "the Philosophy of Life," treats of consciousness, or of the inward man: the second, "this Philosophy of History," which I now have here brought to a close, considers the outward man, or the progress of states and nations through all ages of the world.

That in this progress of mankind, a divine Hand and conducting Providence are clearly discernible; that earthly and visible power has not alone co-operated in this progress, and in the opposition which has impeded it; but that the struggle has been in part carried on under divine, and against invisible might;--is a truth, I trust, which if not proved to mathematical evidence, (an evidence here neither appropriate nor applicable), has still been substantiated on firm and solid grounds. We may conclude our work, by a retrospective view of society, considered in reference to that invisible world and higher region, from which the operations of this visible world proceed, in which its great destinies have their root, and which is the ultimate and highest term of all its movements.

Christianity is the emancipation of the human race from the bondage of that inimical spirit, who denies God, and, as far as in him lies, leads all created intelligences astray. Hence the Scripture styles him, "the Prince of this world;" and so he was in fact, but in ancient history only, when among all the nations of the earth, and amid the pomp of martial glory, and the splendour of Pagan life, he had established the throne of his domination. Since this divine era in the history of man, since the commencement of his emancipation in modern times, this spirit can no longer be called the prince of this world, but the _spirit of time_, the spirit opposed to divine influence, and to the Christian religion, apparent in those who consider and estimate time and all things temporal, not by the law and feeling of eternity, but for temporal interests or from temporal motives, change, or undervalue, and forget the thoughts and faith of eternity.

In the first ages of the Christian church, this spirit of time appeared as a beguiling sectarian spirit. This spirit obtained its highest triumph in the new and false faith of a fanatic Unitarianism, utterly opposed to the religion of love, and which severed from Christianity so large a portion of the Eastern church, and whole regions of Asia. In the middle ages this spirit displayed itself, not so much in hostile sects, as in scholastic disputes, in divisions between church and state, and in the internal disorders of both. At the commencement of the new era of the world, the spirit of time claimed as an urgent want of mankind, full freedom of faith; a claim of which the immediate consequence was only a bloody warfare, and a fatal struggle of life and death protracted beyond a century. When this struggle was terminated, or rather appeased, it was succeeded by an utter indifference for all religions, provided only their morality were good; and the spirit of time proclaimed religious _indifferentism_, as the order of the day. This apparent calm was followed by the revolutionary tempest, and now that this has passed away, the spirit of time has in our days become absolute--that is to say, it has perverted reason to party--passion, or exalted passion, to the place of reason; and this is the existing form and last metamorphosis of the old evil spirit of time.

Turning now to that Divine aid which has supported mankind in their ever-enduring struggle against their own infirmities, against all the obstacles of nature, and natural circumstances, and against the opposition of the evil spirit; I have endeavoured to shew, that in the first thousand years of Primitive History, Divine Revelation, although preserved in its native purity but in the one original source, still flowed in copious streams through the religious traditions of the other great nations of that pristine epoch; and that troubled as the current might be by the admixture of many errors, yet was it easy to trace it in the midst of this slime and pollution, to its pure and sacred source. And with such a belief must commence every religious view of universal history. And it is only with this religious belief, and perception of the traces of divine revelation, we can rightly comprehend and judge this primitive epoch of history. We shall prize with deeper, more earnest, and more solid affection, the great and divine era of man's redemption and emancipation (occurring as it does in the middle-point of human history), the more accurately we discriminate between what is essentially divine and unchangeably eternal in this revelation of love, and the elements of destruction which man has opposed thereto, or intermingled therewith. And it is only in the spirit of love, the history of Christian times can be rightly understood and accurately judged. In later ages, when the spirit of discord has triumphed over love, historical hope is our only remaining clue in the labyrinth of history. It is only with sentiments of grateful admiration, of amazement, and awe, we trace in the special dispensations of providence, for the advancement of Christianity and the progress of modern society, the wonderful concurrence of events towards the single object of divine love, or the unexpected exercise of divine justice long delayed; such as I have in the proper places endeavoured to point out. With this faith in Primitive Revelation, and in the glorious consummation of Christian love, I cannot better conclude this "Philosophy of History," than with the religious hope I have more than once expressed, and which is more particularly applicable to these times--the dawn of an approaching era:--that by the thorough religious regeneration of the state, and of science, the cause of God and Christianity may obtain a complete triumph on the earth.

[20] What a melancholy foreboding is contained in these
words!--_Trans._

[21] Austria.

[22] Prussia.

[23] Schlegel here conveys an indirect censure on the
Prussian government, for some acts of an intolerant
nature towards its Catholic subjects.--_Trans._

[24] This was spoken exactly two years before the
French Revolution of July, 1830.--_Trans._

[25] Austria.

[26] France.

[27] Schlegel alludes to the philosophy of Fichte,
which was _an ideal subjective Pantheism_.

[28] The author here alludes to the philosophy of
Schelling, which was more a material and objective
Pantheism, not unlike the system of Spinoza.

[29] This last expression contains, I believe, an
allusion to the philosophy of Hegel.--_Trans._

FINIS.

B. BENSLEY, PRINTER.

Transcriber's Note:

Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and moved to the end of the lecture in which the related anchor appears. Words in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_.

The items listed below were considered printer's errors and were corrected as noted. Obsolete and archaic words and other spelling errors were not changed.

Unprinted periods were added at end of sentences and abbreviations.
deleted duplicate 'being' ... hope of being able ...
'Seuvi' to 'Suevi' ... those of the Suevi and the Saxons,...
'vegetion' to 'vegetation' ... and blooming vegetation spread ...
'Asyrian' to 'Assyrian' ... the Assyrian Venus ...
'decended' to 'descended' ... light had descended ...
capitalized 'Latin' ... barbarous Latin,...
'and' to 'a' ... firmly to establish a new model society ...
moved comma inside close parenthesis ... of despotism,) will ...
'goverment' to 'government' ... the Christian government ...
two instances of 'Charlemange' to 'Charlemagne'
'constition' to 'constitution' ...peculiar nature and constitution ...
'aud' to 'and' ... and so active was their ...
'Christain' to 'Christian' ... manners and Christian institutions;...
removed hyphen from 'party-strife' ... a watch-word for party strife ...
'ecclesiastal' to ecclesiastical' ... ecclesiastical excommunication ...
'althongh' to 'although' ... although that idolatry,...
'inteterests' to 'interests' ... complication of the interests ...
'harmouy' to 'harmony' ... aimed at this harmony between ...
Footnote [6], added open quote to beginning of second paragraph.
capitalized 'Systema' ... Systema Theologicum of Leibnitz,...